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Upgrading old Mac Pro to 8800 GT graphics?
- Thread starter Fezzy
- Start date
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/shakes hand back
Edit to add: just to make it clear: it probably seems like I am sticking up for Apple here in the face of what seems like obviously slimy behavior. Just for the record if it turns out that the new cards are no compatible with Mac Pros bought as little as a few weeks ago I think that people have every right to be upset with Apple, although they may not have actually been promised these updates, they do appear to have made reasonable and realistic assumptions that new cards would work as they are all PCI-e (and work on the PC side).
As an interesting aside, it looks like Apple has deleted the thread on their discussions page about this.
Does that mean anything?
[EDIT] My bad, it's still there. I'm an idiot [/EDIT]
Does that mean anything?
[EDIT] My bad, it's still there. I'm an idiot [/EDIT]
Now now, think how disappointed you'll be if it doesn't happen....
Anyway, it seems to me that if that announcement, less than a week hence, were going to happen, Apple wouldn't be going to all the trouble today of calling 8800GT purchasers and telling them to cancel their orders.
umm works for me.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6305521#6305521
dear god this thread is expanding faster than i can read it.
Not necessarily. They have deleted many threads in the past, normally people complaining about real or perceived issues. They deleted untold threads about the iMac screen gradient issue refusing to acknowledge it was a problem. Then suddenly they did an about face, acknowledged it and eventually fixed it...
Wasn't a version of the X1900 belatedly offered as an upgrade option for the G5?
I suspect something similar will happen here with the Mac Pro and 8800, especially after seeing how many phone calls they had to make and how many orders have been cancelled.
I suspect something similar will happen here with the Mac Pro and 8800, especially after seeing how many phone calls they had to make and how many orders have been cancelled.
Well I'm kind of disappointed with Apple, it really was a mis-step to call this an "Upgrade Kit", as it implies that it was for older (Pre 2008 Mac Pro's)... they didn't even say "Upgrade Kit for (Early 2008) Mac Pro's"
I'm glad there is one brave soul here willing to test the waters... make sure to post your results!
Same for me. They want to cancel my order.
After about an hour of transfers and such I found a tech hat understands hardware.
Bottom Line: Apple has no official stand on backwards compatibility. The tech understands the PCIe specs and stated exactly this:
So, KEEP YOUR ORDERS!!! I'm keeping mine!
I'm glad there is one brave soul here willing to test the waters... make sure to post your results!
OK I'm now calm, nothing more is going to happen tonight and I have to go do a night shift anyway. God help the patients that come into A+E if I'm all fired up over this lol.
I'm going to wait for my 8800GT to arrive, if it works then fine I'll jump for joy. If not then I'll send it back to Apple and ask for my refund.
I haven't yet decided whether my Mac Pro will be sold should it not work.
I'm going to wait for my 8800GT to arrive, if it works then fine I'll jump for joy. If not then I'll send it back to Apple and ask for my refund.
I haven't yet decided whether my Mac Pro will be sold should it not work.
Floating in the same rickety boat
Just wanted to offer up in that I also own a 2006 Mac Pro, also got the cancellation phone call, and am also pretty disappointed. The bottom line is that the single most touted feature of the Mac Pro was it's expandability. If it were 2012 and we were complaining about compatibility it would be a different story.
I called Apple support this afternoon and spoke with several different people about this situation. The guy was actually really nice but he told me my best bet was to call ATI/NVIDIA to ask about the support.
I don't see what's stopping Apple from releasing a firmware update like someone mentioned. If there's any physical way this card can be used with our older Mac Pros, I hope Apple technicians have the decency to invite the early adopters to the party.
Just wanted to offer up in that I also own a 2006 Mac Pro, also got the cancellation phone call, and am also pretty disappointed. The bottom line is that the single most touted feature of the Mac Pro was it's expandability. If it were 2012 and we were complaining about compatibility it would be a different story.
I called Apple support this afternoon and spoke with several different people about this situation. The guy was actually really nice but he told me my best bet was to call ATI/NVIDIA to ask about the support.
I don't see what's stopping Apple from releasing a firmware update like someone mentioned. If there's any physical way this card can be used with our older Mac Pros, I hope Apple technicians have the decency to invite the early adopters to the party.
I haven't had a call from Apple wanting to cancel my order.
I feel really left out
Don't worry. Neither have I.
lol
I just had a (optimistic) thought. What if Apple are saying they won't work because they won't work on ALL pre 2008 MP's and only some?
I only bought my MP in August and it's a MacPro1,1 as listed in System Profiler. Maybe it'll work for me
I just had a (optimistic) thought. What if Apple are saying they won't work because they won't work on ALL pre 2008 MP's and only some?
I only bought my MP in August and it's a MacPro1,1 as listed in System Profiler. Maybe it'll work for me
Proof of the Pudding
I guess we are all going to have to wait and see if one of our friends in the UK who has ordered this can prove that this will work in an "old" MP and we can get an idea on what spec of machine you need to make this work.
As usual there is tons of conflicting info out there - let's just keep the faith until we no definitely its a no go
I guess we are all going to have to wait and see if one of our friends in the UK who has ordered this can prove that this will work in an "old" MP and we can get an idea on what spec of machine you need to make this work.
As usual there is tons of conflicting info out there - let's just keep the faith until we no definitely its a no go
I really don't see the conflicting info at all. Apple are calling customers in all different locations stating this card will not work with older Mac Pro's. This seems pretty clear cut.
Hopefully with enough complaints they will resolve this situation. When i purchased my Mac Pro i went with the 7300GT and was really hoping for a new Nvidia upgrade at a later date. If i can't upgrade i will sell my Mac Pro and purchase a Windows machine even though i love using my Mac. I really need a better card in my Pro machine than a low end gaming card.
I'll be right behind you, if this all proves to be true, I switched to Mac when the Bondi rev B iMacs came out, but I'll switch back to PC even faster if I get left high and dry.
lol
I just had a (optimistic) thought. What if Apple are saying they won't work because they won't work on ALL pre 2008 MP's and only some?
I only bought my MP in August and it's a MacPro1,1 as listed in System Profiler. Maybe it'll work for me
As a prospective (but not current) Mac Pro owner, I'd say the general principle is more important than any exceptions. Basically, even if I can get a new MP w/ the 8800 now, Apple not allowing an upgrade to older MP's let's me know where I'll be 2-3 years from now. A large part of the reason people buy these things is the promise of upgrading. To some extent, Apple has already bended this (mythical) promise by not offering a new card in the last 1.5 years, but I can live with that. Not allowing an upgrade would alienate a large portion of today's (and tomorrow's) Mac Pro users.
But as said before, I doubt this will be the case. The smart thing would be to not get worked up about it until it's crystal clear. That said, I'd say 90% of all discussion here is based on theoretical assumptions. There wouldn't be much to talk about if we only discussed things we knew.
Yeah, it might just get fixed. I sense a distinct possibility someone is gonna send a couple of hairy chested, iBat packing bouncer types to create a slight disruption during Steve's keynote. Hm.
Maybe Apple have plans to release other video cards at Macworld. Who knows. I really think it's too early to get angry about it all. The card isn't even shipping yet, and I've heard of shipping dates anywhere from next week to 3-5 weeks.
Someone might even hack the card to work on a old Mac Pro.
Maybe this thread will be part of Steve Jobs opening joke at Macworld... [Steve Jobs enters stage and says]... "We announced new Mac Pros and thought we would make all those waiting for new Mac Pros exstatic. Next day everyone was attacking us on the internet about video cards for the old Mac Pro which we were going to announce today..."
even more confusing
check this link out regarding some correspondence between an apple snr software engineer and a developer
looks like all macs post sept2007 have efi64 providing efi64 means 64bit efi
http://lists.apple.com/archives/Boot-dev/2007/Sep/msg00002.html
Re: EFI Boot drivers for PCI
* Subject: Re: EFI Boot drivers for PCI
* From: Garth Cummings <email@hidden>
* Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:25:36 -0700
* Delivered-to: email@hidden
* Delivered-to: email@hidden
Hi Siraj,
On Sep 9, 2007, at 11:48 PM, Alexander v. Below wrote:
> I am not Apple, but AFAIK Apple does support 3rd party EFI boot drivers.
Yes, EFI boot drivers are supported for hardware that needs to participate in booting.
There is nothing Apple-specific about EFI. Check out the resources at <http://www.uefi.org> and <http://www.tianocore.org> for more details.
The only thing is that Apple strongly recommends shipping EBC drivers and not native-code drivers. This insulates you from the differences between 32-bit EFI on the earlier Intel-based Macs and 64-bit EFI on all currently-shipping systems. This in turn means you need Intel's EBC compiler to build your driver.
HTH,
--gc
____________________________________________________________________
Garth Cummings email@hidden
Sr. Software Engineer
Apple Developer Technical Support
<http://developer.apple.com/technicalsupport>
check this link out regarding some correspondence between an apple snr software engineer and a developer
looks like all macs post sept2007 have efi64 providing efi64 means 64bit efi
http://lists.apple.com/archives/Boot-dev/2007/Sep/msg00002.html
Re: EFI Boot drivers for PCI
* Subject: Re: EFI Boot drivers for PCI
* From: Garth Cummings <email@hidden>
* Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:25:36 -0700
* Delivered-to: email@hidden
* Delivered-to: email@hidden
Hi Siraj,
On Sep 9, 2007, at 11:48 PM, Alexander v. Below wrote:
> I am not Apple, but AFAIK Apple does support 3rd party EFI boot drivers.
Yes, EFI boot drivers are supported for hardware that needs to participate in booting.
There is nothing Apple-specific about EFI. Check out the resources at <http://www.uefi.org> and <http://www.tianocore.org> for more details.
The only thing is that Apple strongly recommends shipping EBC drivers and not native-code drivers. This insulates you from the differences between 32-bit EFI on the earlier Intel-based Macs and 64-bit EFI on all currently-shipping systems. This in turn means you need Intel's EBC compiler to build your driver.
HTH,
--gc
____________________________________________________________________
Garth Cummings email@hidden
Sr. Software Engineer
Apple Developer Technical Support
<http://developer.apple.com/technicalsupport>
That pretty much sums it up right there. I don't think there's much of a point to continue to complain about it here. It might be of more use to give Apple feedback, support Blizzard in their own complaints against Apple, or at worst hope ATi/nVidia release an after market upgrade.
I have a recollection that the Radeon 38xx Series was working under 10.5.2 but that might have been a hacked installer. The drivers for the HD 2600XT are more then likely capable of working for the 38xx.